Chapter 43 Jude #2
‘Our reporting had become spotty, as of late,’ Ezra said. ‘It seemed our intel had grown too… soft to be useful. Hence sending the iconographer.’
‘Maeve,’ Jude corrected once again, vitriol in his voice.
‘Her name is Maeve. Who decided to send her away, then, if it wasn’t you?
To out her as an abomination in the eyes of the Abbey for the magic she unknowingly wielded?
’ He dug his fingers into the wall to hold himself in place.
‘Were you the one to decide not to mark her?’
Ezra’s eyes didn’t leave his. Pale blue. Guileless. ‘The Abbey doesn’t view the saints as abominations, at least not the way you’re imagining. We view them like any other deity, I suppose.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He didn’t. Not even a little. The saints had been the only deity he’d ever been taught to recognize. He knew there were other religions, other gods worshipped outside of the Abbey’s prying eyes, but not for Jude.
‘When a group commits to a god, if you want to call it that, it’s natural to want that thing to be set apart.
Distanced from the common people,’ Ezra explained, adopting an academic tone.
‘When something is far away, it’s easier to view as perfect.
Cracks are only visible from up close, after all, and who wants to devote their lives to something fallible?
Even those who are privileged enough to see the saints for what they are—’
‘The elders, you mean,’ Jude interrupted.
‘Yes. The elders. We keep the saints distanced to maintain that fragile equilibrium between those who pray and those who grant. Both magic and religion have their place. Religion is a public endeavour. Belief in the saints binds our community together. It’s an expression of structure.
And every community needs its scaffolding. ’
‘And magic?’
‘Magic,’ Ezra responded patiently, ‘is something individualistic we’ve made communal. By nature, it’s a private action. A talent that crops up every so often in individuals. We’ve simply moved it away from the individual and towards the collective.’
Jude weighed Ezra’s words against his own cynical view of religion.
He compared it to Bethan’s acceptance of her abilities, grown in an environment away from the Abbey and its secretive, white-knuckled hold on saints.
She didn’t hold the suffocating hatred Jude did for their shared magic, which made him wonder – was his attitude towards his magic down to his personal experience with it or what he’d been taught to believe?
In a way, he understood where Ezra was coming from. Even though Jude’s magic felt out of reach on the best of days, he’d always viewed it through a selfish lens. It was his magic. The Abbey’s touch was what made it feel tainted and wrong.
Yet… the elders used that very same magic every day. They’d taken what was personal and made it collective, sacrificing his autonomy in the process.
The thought didn’t sit right.
‘But you’re the ones who steal our abilities to manipulate memories and call it answering prayers,’ Jude said slowly.
Ezra made a quiet noise in the back of his throat. ‘If it helps you to see it that way, yes.’
‘That’s not how you see it?’
He weighed his head back and forth. ‘Not… exactly. We elders view ourselves as more intermediaries. We’ve trained our entire lives, after all.
We’re gifted with the discernment to choose when and how we shape memories to answer prayers.
The saints—’ He paused, inclining his head in Jude’s direction.
‘Why should acolytes trust you to decide what prayers get answered? You’re so young, so volatile with unearned confidence. Why, even my own son—’
Ezra’s jaw snapped shut, eyes bulging. His hand slipped up to his neck, moving beneath the collar of his habit. Something flashed silver before it disappeared beneath the brown fabric.
Dizziness swarmed at the edges of Jude’s vision. He blinked rapidly as it vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving him unsteady on his feet. When he searched back to the last few seconds of conversation, he couldn’t remember what Ezra had said.
‘All I mean to say is,’ Ezra added before Jude could probe at his memory any further, ‘saints are young when their powers manifest. Imagine how catastrophic it would be to give children free rein over their abilities.’
‘Why pretend to answer prayers at all?’ Jude countered. ‘Why intervene and not let life take its natural course? It can’t be easy manipulating the memory of so many.’
‘Would you let life take its course if you had the power to change it for the better?’ Ezra asked. ‘Besides… we’re not altering events. Just how they’re remembered. Who does it harm to let them believe in prayers? It’s a comfort to know someone is there, someone is listening when they pray.’
Jude hated his tone, hated the false kindness in it. It reeked of wilful delusion. His deep-seated fury at the memories of so many under the thumb of the Abbey grew stronger. The members, even the acolytes, had no idea their memories were being altered in the name of answered prayers.
How did the elders justify the theft?
‘We’re creating peace like any other religion or community,’ Ezra continued when Jude didn’t respond.
‘Even in governments, no leadership framework exists without some elements of its function being kept from its followers. Are you saying you need to know how the sausage gets made to enjoy it? Through answering prayer, we can keep our followers happy. Keep the Abbey prosperous. Help our community. The saints are simply our figurehead.’
‘Keep the money coming in, you mean,’ Jude snapped.
Ezra shrugged, unbothered by the accusation. ‘Wealth is a natural consequence of power, not necessarily the goal.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ Jude asked. Nausea surged up from his stomach. He slipped a half-inch further down the wall. ‘After all these years, both in and out of the Abbey, why now?’
Ezra pushed to his feet. The joints of his knees cracked under him.
‘I have a deal to offer you, Jude, that’s why.
And I want you to be fully aware of the stakes before you agree.
’ His smile was gentle, almost saccharine.
As though he held a vial of poison prepared to sweeten Jude’s tea.
‘If you leave now, no further harm will come to you.’
His mouth dropped open. That was the last thing he’d expected Ezra to say. ‘And Maeve?’
‘She’s coming here, you know. To the Abbey.’ Ezra made a show of checking his wristwatch. ‘She should be entering in, oh – an hour’s time? She saw you get taken, and I assumed she’d come and attempt a rescue.’ He cocked his head. ‘Would that be the correct assumption?’
‘You’re using me to lure her here?’
Ezra raised a brow. ‘Well. It wasn’t our original plan. She was meant to be with you when we found you wandering the streets. But this works, too.’ He held up a hand before Jude could continue. ‘The offer still stands. Leave and return to your home, and you’ll be safe.’
‘And Maeve? What about her?’ Jude repeated. He wanted to spring across the room and wrap his hands around Ezra’s throat so badly that his fingers tingled.
‘Are you so concerned for the iconographer that you’d risk your own life?
Surely, you must know I’d let no harm befall her.
She’s like a daughter to me.’ Ezra drummed his fingers on the opposite wrist. ‘It wouldn’t be a hard thing, to erase her memories of you, and yours of her. We’ve done it before.’
Jude could bear anything but that. He tried to slow his breathing at the thought, but it continued to sweep down his body like poison in his bloodstream, promising a bottomless well of despair. His memories of her… the most precious thing he owned, gone in an instant.
Why, why had he not saved them in a book?
Maeve, staring down at him cross-legged on the floor, the first hint of softness in her eyes.
Her pulling him from the bog, the shape of her shoulders under his hands in his library.
How she’d captured him wholly and completely on the canvas.
He’d knelt before her in the rain and the smoke, promising her his loyalty, his life.
She’d seen him like no one ever had, and no one would again.
As surely as he knew the sound of his own heartbeat, he knew Ezra was telling the truth. He would take their memories if they didn’t comply. Or worse.
Was it his imagination, or could he hear singing through the thick stone walls? His hearing dipped in and out, leaving a faint ringing behind. He swayed on his feet.
A saint on an altar, the jeering crowd calling for blood.
Jude blinked, and the memory was gone, but the message remained – the Abbey would never allow them to walk in as saints and leave as anything less than martyrs.
He had promised himself as a boy, beaten and alone in a room not so very far from here, that he would fight.
He’d fought then, and he’d continue fighting now. For as long as he had breath.
‘If she’s here, then so am I,’ Jude said. ‘I won’t leave her.’
‘Ah.’ Ezra smiled. ‘I thought you might say that.’ His eyes fell to the table pushed against the side of the bed. He picked up the glass from it, tilting it to spin the remaining water along the bottom.
For the first time, Jude noticed a faint oily residue in its wake.
He swallowed. The subtle taste of juniper lingered on his tongue.
‘You didn’t drink the whole glass as I’d hoped, but it should be enough,’ Ezra said. He set the cup down. ‘Maybe sit before you collapse. It’ll be more comfortable.’
Jude swallowed again. Dryness coated his throat. The dizziness at his peripherals crept closer. His legs trembled. ‘I… I don’t—’
Ezra rose. His hands slid under Jude’s arms, directing him towards the bed. ‘I told you to sit down,’ he murmured.
Above, the ceiling flashed briefly gold before it faded entirely into black.